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I'm not a backer of Al Lowe because I did not overly enjoy the old LSL-incarnations and I'm certain I will not like the new incarnation (I'm married; when I want to see boobs I ask my wife to show them; I don't need Al Lowe).

I'm not a backer of Jane Jensen because I did not play those old Sierra-games; she's an unknown entity for me.

Seriously? The last proper RPG from a "major" developer was probably Temple of Elemental Evil in 2003. That's nine years ago and will be ten years when Wasteland 2 gets released. I don't think you are aware of what Wasteland was actually like. If you think it's comparable to Dark Souls, Skyrim, The Witcher or Diablo then you'll be in for a huge shock if you decide to play it.

Wizardry I'm going to have to ask you to stop being so melodramatic.

Neverwinter Nights 2 and Drakensang : River Of Time were definitely decent, recent RPGs (Unless you don't qualify the two grandaddies of paper RPG systems RPGs.)

Like them or not I don't think you can write them off that easily as not being "proper" RPGs.

Now let's not be silly. There's nothing in your definition of RPG that excludes pausable real-time games.

I'm just going to assume that Wizardry was correcting himself and stating that he meant turn based games in his original post about TOEE. This way I hope to avoid another argument on the topic.

But back to the original post : I don't think that we can directly compare the two Kickstarters directly. They're completely different games in completely different genres being punted by completely different personalities. I'd say that the only similarity is that they are on Kickstarter.

Full credit to Shaeffer for getting the ball rolling on the Kickstarter bandwagon.

For the record the only game I'm backing and plan to back is Wasteland 2. It was an irrational spur of the moment decision since I'm pretty leary of the whole Kickstarter concept. I'm curious to see how it works out.

STOP even using the acronym "RPG". It longer means anything in the context of computers. It's dilluted beyond all repair. It has been used to describe all kinds of games, hell - even racing games fit the common definition. After all, in many racing games you work your way towards better cars. That's character (stat) progression ! How many games don't have the "player gradually becomes more powerful" aspect ? Not that many.

STOP even using the acronym "RPG". It longer means anything in the context of computers. It's dilluted beyond all repair. It has been used to describe all kinds of games, hell - even racing games fit the common definition. After all, in many racing games you work your way towards better cars. That's character (stat) progression ! How many games don't have the "player gradually becomes more powerful" aspect ? Not that many.

lol... dude. People know what an RPG is. People aren't going to stop using the acronym either simply because you are mad that other genres have RPG like elements to them now.

Going back to the original post, Wasteland 2 has now raised over three million dollars, if you include all Paypal donations, with a bit more than an hour to go. Not quite on the same level as Double Fine, but then again they did have the first-mover advantage. Besides, I don't believe there's much to be gained from directly comparing the two projects, even more so since I assume a lot of people backed them both.

What they both proved is that there still exists a demand for these neglected genres, which hopefully encourages other small studios to invest into projects that might have been deemed too risky a few months ago. We've already seen examples of this. The Kickstarters for Shadowrun, Banner Saga and Jane Jensen probably wouldn't have happened if Tim Schaefer and Brian Fargo hadn't been so succesful. I think the game industry as a whole could benefit from more of these medium-budget games that are cheaper to produce than an AAA title but still a step above your common indie game and I'm genuinely looking forward to seeing what the next few years will have in store for us.